Race-tracks for toy cars and the like are a very popular form of toy. A particularly popular form of such toy is one where the race track is formed from a plurality of segments that can be fitted together to form a race track of any desired shape, and where the cars are guided and powered by means of a slot formed along the track segments and thus along the completed track when the segments are put together.
Generally such race tracks include two parallel slots per segment, and thus the completed race track includes two parallel guide slots. Since of course the race track is normally configured so as to form a closed loop, one of these slots will be an inner slot and the other will be an outer slot. Inevitably therefore the distance taken by one slot in a complete lap will be shorter than the distance taken by the other, and since compared to a real race track such a toy race track has proportionately tighter bends, this difference is significant and a toy racing car in the outer slot will have to travel a substantially longer distance than one in the inner slot.
To overcome this disparity in distance of the two slots, it is conventional to have one track segment in which the two slots cross over. If such a segment is included in the completed race track then the effect is that once every lap the two tot racing cars will swap slots. The toy car in the outer slot will move to the inner, and the toy car in the inner slot will move to the outer. Over a number of laps this will even out the disparity that would otherwise be caused by the difference in length between the inner and outer slots.